Dinosara Send Message

So, now that I have worked down on some blends club blends and I am actually at 100 teas in my cupboard (not counting the samples from Cameron), I feel like I can finally start trying those WP samples that Cameron B. so generously sent me. You might have heard that WP is kind of a big deal around on Steepster lately, so eventually I decided I should probably give them a try. The only WP tea I’ve had before now is North Winds, which I understand is the base for this tea (?).

I followed the steeping parameters exactly for this one; it was convenient because they happen to be my default black tea steeping parameters. It left me kind of… what’s the big deal? This tea has just a little crapton of hype about it, so I guess I was expecting nothing short of heaven on earth. For most of my cup, it tasted pretty much exactly like North Winds, which is to say bittersweet-chocolatey, not unlike some Fengqing pearls I’ve tried in the past. I had no vanilla or related flavors (creaminess, etc) until I got down to the very bottom of the cup and it was pretty much stone cold. Then the last couple of sips were vanilla bombs, no doubt thanks to the little vanilla seeds swimming at the bottom. It was a tasty cup, but it was not liquefied fudge or a chocolate sundae or any of the other superlatives people use for it. I have another small serving of it, so I will happily try it again, and I could even imagine getting another sample of it sometime just to give it another shot. I could always order some North Winds at the lower price and cut some of the roughly 1 kilos worth of Madagascar vanilla beans I have in my cupboard into it (a perk of doing fieldwork in Madagascar). :)

I will say that I feel like my tastes in teas are diverging from a lot of the Steepster crowd these days, so I guess you can take my note with a grain of salt. Thanks again to Cameron for the sample! This is why I wanted a sample first. :)